The Verge

Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge Apple Music’s payment rate for artists and labels is a penny per stream on average, according to a letter from the company posted on its artist dashboard, viewed by The Verge, and first reported by the Wall Street Journal. That payment rate is higher than Spotify, which has a confusing variable rate scheme that basically tops out at a half-penny per stream. Apple says in the letter that its rates vary by subscription plan and country but average to a penny-per-stream.Announcing an average penny-per-stream rate is a nice PR win for Apple Music, since it is 1. very simple and 2. Spotify hates talking about its per-stream payments, which the company insists are a misleading figure. Seriously, it just launched an entire website called L... Continue reading…

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge Okay. Peloton sells a very famous stationary bicycle with streaming workouts, an app, and a whole fitness lifestyle situation.Apple sells a very famous smartwatch with heart rate tracking, apps, and the ability to sync with fitness equipment over a proprietary Apple system called GymKit.The basic Peloton bike costs $1,895 and does not work with GymKit; the fancier Bike Plus, which works with GymKit, costs $2,495.A lot of people bought the more expensive bike to use it with their Apple Watches over GymKit! And yesterday all those people were dismayed to learn that Peloton had disabled Apple Watch integration for “bike bootcamp” classes, which combine cycling with strength training. (The integration still works just fine with regular... Continue reading…

A maskless O’Keefe at CPAC in February 2021. | Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images James O’Keefe, a conservative activist and founder of Project Veritas, should be able to take a break from Twitter after the company suspended his account for allegedly making fake Twitter accounts. O’Keefe has denied the claim and says he plans to sue Twitter over the suspension.Twitter told Gizmodo that O’Keefe was suspended for “misleading others” by “operating fake accounts.” According to the New York Times, Twitter claims O’Keefe was operating multiple sockpuppet accounts to “artificially amplify or disrupt conversations.”O’Keefe and his staff at Project Veritas have a long history of pretending to be someone else and failing to identify themselves as the journalists they claim to be. O’Keefe first came to notoriety after... Continue reading…

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge I was recently working remotely next to my dad, and realized just how many time-saving little Google Sheets shortcuts I take for granted. These aren’t advanced formulas or pivot tables; just simple tricks to save you time if you work with basic organizational spreadsheets. Some of these are old Excel tricks; but some even my Verge colleagues only discovered recently.Easily rearrange rows and columns by dragging from the row numberIf you want to reorder a row, you can do it in one step by first clicking on the row number to highlight the row, then clicking and dragging from the row number to easily slot it wherever you want it. Reorder rows in Google Sheets by dragging from the row number Before learning this... Continue reading…

Photo by Dan Seifert / The Verge Some weeks aren’t so great on the tech deals front. Thankfully, this hasn’t been one of those weeks. Each day, our deals roundups have been full of fresh discounts, like the best-ever price on Amazon’s new Echo Show 10 smart display that can rotate to follow your movements around the room or $100 off a 27-inch 1440p gaming monitor from LG. There are a few other deals to look through below, and they’re all good, so I won’t waste much more of your time. But in case you’re looking for a Mother’s Day gift, our gift guide (which is gorgeous, might I say) is full of ideas.Apple’s AirPods Pro are $197Apple’s top-shelf wireless earbuds, the AirPods Pro, are down to $197 at Amazon and Walmart, over $50 less than the MSRP and about $20 less... Continue reading…

Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge Every Friday, The Verge publishes our flagship podcast, The Vergecast, where co-hosts Nilay Patel and Dieter Bohn discuss the week in tech news with the reporters and editors covering the biggest stories. This week, Verge editor Chris Welch joins Nilay and Dieter in a phone and gadget-dominated episode.The discussion starts with news of Apple announcing a spring event coming up on April 20th. The crew reviews which products may or may not be announced next week — from an Apple TV with a camera to new iPads and more services.The gadget talk continues with a farewell to both LG phones and Logitech Harmony remotes. Last week, LG announced it was exiting the smartphone business. A few days later, Logitech announced it was discontinuing... Continue reading…

Amazon’s Echo Show 8 smart display | Photo by Dan Seifert / The Verge Project Connected Home over IP (CHIP), the awkwardly-named-but-interesting smart home partnership between Apple, Amazon, Google, and over 170 other companies that’s supposed to make everything more compatible should finally start showing some results later this year. According to a webinar hosted by the Zigbee Alliance earlier this week, companies participating in the program will be able to get smart home devices certified for the standard by late 2021, which means we might see some things on shelves for the holiday shopping season. That first wave of devices will include things like lighting, blinds, HVAC controls, TVs, door locks, garage door openers, security systems, and Wi-Fi routers.The CHIP standard is built around three... Continue reading…

Image: Apple Apple has officially announced its “Spring Loaded” event for April 20th, its first major product announcement of 2021.Unlike a lot of Apple’s events, its spring events tend to be a bit more scattershot: one year might see high-end iPads, another a more education-focused event, or a launch of a comprehensive service strategy. This year, rumors are pointing to a refreshed iPad Pro lineup, potentially with Apple’s first Mini LED panels — which would bring a big jump forward for the company’s tablet displays. But we could also see new AirPods, the company’s long-rumored AirTag trackers, a new iPad Mini, and more.The proceeding should kick off at 1PM ET on Tuesday, but if you’re looking for an early preview, here’s what you can probably... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Today, let’s talk about the new tone Jeff Bezos is taking when talking about Amazon — and whether we can expect it to have any practical effect on the company after he turns over the CEO job to his successor, Andy Jassy.A recurring theme in this column is Amazon’s general indifference to public perception. Last month, it picked a losing fight with Congress over the unionization efforts at its Bessemer, Alabama fulfillment center. A year ago, The Wall Street Journal revealed that the company had lied to lawmakers about whether it used data from third-party sellers to inform product development. A couple years before that, it conducted a sham search for a second “headquarters” that angered politicians around the country.The company has... Continue reading…

Photo by Artur Widak/NurPhoto via Getty Images I’m really serious about quitting Twitter this time, I promise. I deactivated my account on March 15th and declared the event to my friends in Slack. They earnestly congratulated me. They’re all still on Twitter, but they all know how exhausting and distressing it can be. Now that I’m gone, their new joke on Twitter is that I “don’t exist.”It’s not the first time I haven’t existed, and sure as death and taxes, it won’t be the last. But my nonexistence on Twitter didn’t stick right away. When I first quit on the 15th, I came back three days later because I decided that I wanted to tweet about a new project.Then I got owned by my friends, and I deserved it:

Let’s face it, it’s been a long and hard year for the denizens of our planet since Earth Day’s 50th anniversary in 2020. However, it’s possible that things are looking up somewhat. Although the COVID-19 pandemic is still raging in many parts of the world, we do have vaccines that may eventually get us past this. And in the meantime, the Biden administration in DC is putting environmental programs in place that may get the US back on track. So perhaps it’s worth doing a little partying (and educating) on behalf of this year’s annual celebration of the environmental movement, which is set for April 22nd.Once again, most Earth Day celebrations will be virtual. What follows is a sampling of some that you can attend. For a more complete... Continue reading…

A supremely lightweight 15.6-inch gaming laptop that puts form slightly too far ahead of function Continue reading…

Blink’s cheap wireless cameras have seen better days. | Photo by Thomas Ricker / The Verge On the Blink Continue reading…

A great speed pedelec hamstrung by EU regulations Continue reading…

How to enables the Display Cover feature. | Image: Amazon Amazon Kindle owners can now set the lockscreen image to the cover of the book they’re reading. The long overdue Display Cover feature, first spotted by Engadget, was previously only available after jailbreaking your device (and a popular motivator to do so). Amazon says that it works with “most books, magazines, comics, and Manga.”The Display Cover feature is only supported on some Kindle devices without ads. These devices include the Kindle (8th, 10th generation), Kindle Paperwhite (7th, 10th gen), Kindle Oasis (8th, 9th, 10th gen), and Kindle Voyage (7th gen). If you can’t recall which Kindle you have then click here to identify it. Promotions on ad-supported devices can be disabled for $20, or by calling into customer support and... Continue reading…

The new GM logo heralding its electric future. | Image: GM On Friday, General Motors and LG Chem are expected to announce a new $2.3 billion battery factory to be located in Spring Hill, Tennessee, say reports from Nikkei, Reuters, and AP. It would be the second US battery joint venture for the American and South Korean giants, after the pair first announced a $2.3 billion battery cell manufacturing plant in Lordstown, Ohio back in 2019.The Spring Hill batteries will be used for the Cadillac Lyriq electric SUV, say sources speaking to Reuters. GM already announced that Lyriq will be powered by GM’s new scalable battery architecture called Ultium. Batteries based on Ultium would offer power ranging from 50 to 200 kWh that could allow for a driving range of 400 miles or more. The Cadillac Lyriq... Continue reading…

Silicon Valley might seem like a shining beacon of technological progress to some onlookers, but natives know it can be weirdly hit and miss — like how the San Francisco Bay Area has long had a physical tap-to-pay card that’ll let you onto practically every form of public transit, and yet never let you simply tap your phone or smartwatch to do the same.Until today — because starting today, the Clipper Card supports Apple Pay, including its Express Mode where you don’t need to wake the device or open an app first.You can now use almost any recent iPhone or Apple Watch to board BART (which serves the East Bay and San Francisco), Muni (San Francisco’s bus and light rail system), Caltrain (which connects San Francisco to the peninsula and... Continue reading…

In popular culture, access to an illicit gambling den is as easy as stumbling into the right shop and saying the password — or greasing some palms. Apple’s App Store apparently has a real-life parallel: today, app developer Kosta Eleftheriou discovered a terrible kiddie game that’s actually a front for gambling websites.The secret password isn’t one you’d be likely to guess: you have to be in the right country —or pretend to be in the right country using a VPN.But then, instead of launching an ugly monkey-flipping endless runner game filled with typos and bugs, the very same app launches a casino experience:

Capcom Resident Evil 4 will be rereleased in virtual reality on the Oculus Quest 2 headset. Resident Evil 4’s VR remake will be a collaboration between series publisher Capcom, Oculus parent company Facebook, and the independent studio Armature. While Capcom didn’t offer much detail, some early footage shows a first-person adaptation of the classic third-person shooter.Capcom announced its news during a Resident Evil showcase that also included a new trailer for the non-VR Resident Evil Village. Oculus and Facebook Reality Labs will reveal more about the game on April 21st, when Facebook is holding its own VR showcase for the Quest.The Resident Evil series has tried VR before. The 2017 first-person game Resident Evil 7 let you play through... Continue reading…

During today’s Resident Evil Showcase, Capcom announced that a second demo for its upcoming survival horror game, Resident Evil Village, will release on May 1st. That’s six days before the game’s official release date.Unlike the previous “Maiden” demo, this demo will be playable on all platforms the game will releases on, including PS5, PS4, Xbox Series X and S, Windows PC (via Steam), and Stadia. The demo will allow you to play for 60 minutes and explore both the village and castle areas, regardless of the platform.PS4 and PS5 users will have the option to preload the demo beginning today via the PlayStation Store. Additionally, players on these two platforms will receive early access to the demo on two separate weekends — April 17th... Continue reading…

Image: Fyre Festival LLC The organizers of Fyre Festival — think: The Hunger Games, but for influencers — have agreed to a settlement with 277 attendees for $7,220 apiece, The New York Times reports.Tickets for the 2017 “luxury” music festival on a remote island in the Bahamas that actually turned out to be a beach full of FEMA tents and some pathetic cheese sandwiches, cost anywhere from $1,000 to as much as $12,000 — more if you bought a package deal. Yes, really, because Fyre Festival organizers, while apparently not adept enough to coordinate hotel bookings and a caterer, did enlist big-name Instagram stars to sing the praises of the inaugural event, including Kendall Jenner, who received $250,000 for a post she’s since deleted.Organizers also (falsely)... Continue reading…

Xiulin Ruan, one of the researchers who made the whitest white paint, holding up a sample. | Photo by Jared Pike / Purdue University Researchers at Purdue University say they have created the whitest paint on record. In fact, they’ve now crafted an ultra-white paint twice: in October, they announced a white paint that was capable of reflecting 95.5 percent of sunlight. But they decided to outdo themselves with a new formulation, announced today, that reflects up to 98.1 percent of sunlight.The thing about a very white paint is that, along with reflecting light, it also rejects heat. As any goth who has spent the day on the beach knows, black absorbs light and will heat up. The hope with an ultra-white paint is that it could be used on buildings to keep them cooler without air conditioning.The science of the paint comes down to a high concentration of barium... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Amazon tried to use its power to coerce Ecobee into using its smart home products to collect user data by threatening Ecobee’s ability to sell its products on Amazon, according to a report from The Wall Street Journal.As of now, Ecobee’s products can still be purchased on Amazon, but the WSJ claims that negotiations between Ecobee and Amazon are ongoing. According to the WSJ, the online retail giant asked Ecobee to share data from its Alexa-enabled smart thermostats, even when the customer wasn’t actively using the voice assistant. Ecobee reportedly refused to have its devices constantly report back to Amazon about the state of the user’s home, including data on which doors were locked or unlocked and the set temperature. The reasoning... Continue reading…

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge You’ve probably been caught off guard by videos that play automatically on Facebook, Twitter, or just across the internet in general. They begin playing as soon as you load a page or (if they’re more deviously implemented) when you start scrolling through a page.Automatic video play is a feature that, while nice to have when it’s surfacing content that’s related to your interests, can be pretty annoying. Autoplay videos can be harmful, too, exposing you to violent, offensive, or otherwise unwanted content that you shouldn’t have to see by default.Whether you just want to put an end to autoplay videos on social media platforms or are looking for a more comprehensive fix, we’ve got some tips. Keep in mind that you’ll need to adjust... Continue reading…

Photo Illustration by Rafael Henrique/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images As online publishers grapple with how to replace dwindling ad revenue and find new ways to bring in money, Reuters, one of the largest news organizations in the world, is using a strategy that’s been around for years and putting its online content behind a paywall.Reuters.com draws 41 million unique visitors monthly, according to the company, but it has not charged for access like other news sites in its business-centric niche have done for some time. It will let users read five stories a month for free and plans to charge $34.99 a month for a subscription. That’s a bit pricier than a sub to The New York Times ($18.42 / month) but closer to similar news organizations of its type, including The Wall Street Journal ($38.99 / month),... Continue reading…

Photo by Tim Mosenfelder/Getty Images Arcade Fire has a new single out — sort of. The Canadian indie rock band has released a new 45-minute instrumental composition called “Memories In The Age Of Anxiety,” but the new song is actually a collaboration with meditation app Headspace, and you can only listen to it there.The new track was created in collaboration with John Legend and, as Stereogum notes, is one of the first new pieces of music from the group since its cover of “Baby Mine” in the 2019 live-action version of Dumbo. (It’s the band’s first original song since its 2017 studio album Everything Now.)

Image: Apple The event kicks off at 1PM ET / 10AM PT on April 20th Continue reading…

Illustration by William Joel / The Verge It says 278,000 singles are on it in New York City Continue reading…

You scroll through people’s profiles, similar to a TikTok feed. | Video: Feels There’s a new dating app on the scene called Feels. Its unique selling point is an interface that feels closer to a Snapchat-style story or a TikTok feed rather than the swipeable cards found in other dating apps. TechCrunch reports Feels currently has around 100,000 users. Although the app is available globally, the company says its focus is primarily on the French market as it launches more widely.Feels is styling itself as an “anti-dating app,” but to be clear, this is very much still a dating app. You’re still reacting to profiles and having conversations, which, I’m sure, for a lot of people, will end up with them going on dates. At the same time, though, Feels’ interface, ahem, feels different enough from the competition to make... Continue reading…

Rec Room is a popular VR app Developers who have apps or games on the Oculus Store can now sell recurring subscriptions to their titles, as opposed to offering them for a one-time fee or choosing to handle the subscription process independently. This should give developers an easier, more sustainable way to offer new content, features, and tools to paid subscribers over time. Oculus told The Verge that the approval process for apps with subscriptions is similar to apps that have in-app purchases and add-ons.Oculus shared on its blog that starting today, FitXR, the hugely successful Rec Room, Tribe XR, Tripp, vSpatial, and VZfit are the first to begin operating on a subscription model in the Oculus Store — specifically, for the Quest platform versions of the apps.... Continue reading…

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos said in his final letter to shareholders as CEO that the e-commerce giant has to “do a better job for our employees.” The letter comes amid ongoing reports of untenable conditions for Amazon workers. And it outlines a strategy that seems odd for a company that has been accused of treating workers like robots: a robotic scheme that will develop new staffing schedules using an algorithm.Bezos pushed back on the idea that, according to news reports, Amazon doesn’t care for its employees. “In those reports, our employees are sometimes accused of being desperate souls and treated as robots. That’s not accurate,” he wrote.To address concerns about working conditions, Bezos said the company will develop new staffing... Continue reading…

When losing a job becomes a deportation risk Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Twitter is starting a new initiative, Responsible Machine Learning, to assess any “unintentional harms” caused by its algorithms. A team of engineers, researchers, and data scientists across the company will study how Twitter’s use of machine learning can lead to algorithmic biases that negatively impact users.One of the first tasks is an assessment of racial and gender bias in Twitter’s image cropping algorithm. Twitter users have pointed out that its auto-cropped photo previews seem to favor white faces over Black faces. Last month, the company began testing displaying full images rather than cropped previews.The team will also look at how timeline recommendations differ across racial subgroups and analyze content recommendations... Continue reading…

Microsoft is launching a new Kids Mode for its Edge browser today. It’s built directly into Microsoft Edge on Windows and macOS as a free option that’s simple to enable and doesn’t require much work for parents to manage. The mode can be enabled by selecting it from the Edge profile option, and it will lock kids into the Edge browser with access only to approved sites.“It’s a free, protected online environment for kids 12 and under that gives parents peace of mind when their kids browse the web on a shared device,” explains Divya Kumar, product director of Microsoft Edge, in an interview with The Verge. Image: Microsoft Kids Mode in Microsoft Edge. Microsoft really designed this Kids Mode around the scenario... Continue reading…

And it’s two-tone? Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Apple has created a $200 million fund to invest in forestry projects to help remove carbon from the atmosphere while also generating financial returns for its investors, the company said Thursday. The Restore Fund will invest in forest properties that are managed to increase carbon removal and produce timber. The goal is to remove 1 million metric tons of carbon dioxide annually from the atmosphere.Apple said last year it wants to eliminate its contributions to climate change and become carbon neutral by 2030. The company says it will directly eliminate 75 percent of emissions from its supply chain and products by 2030, and the Restore Fund will help address the other 25 percent of its emissions. Apple’s partners in the Restore Fund... Continue reading…

Photo Illustration by Nikolas Kokovlis/NurPhoto via Getty Images Facebook announced today that it exceeded one of its biggest environmental goals: it managed to slash its greenhouse gas emissions by 94 percent in 2020. It had previously pledged to cut planet-heating emissions by 75 percent. The company said that it had also achieved its goal of “net zero emissions” — not putting any more emissions into the atmosphere than it can take out.Facebook also announced that it had achieved another goal: it now purchases enough renewable energy to cover 100 percent of its global operations, which includes its offices and data centers. But that doesn’t mean that all of its operations are actually powered by renewables like solar and wind energy — at least not yet.Renewable energy to cover 100 percent of its... Continue reading…

Apple is adding a variety of new workouts to its $9.99-per-month Fitness Plus service, including programs designed specifically for beginners and workouts tailored for both pregnant and elderly users.“With more options for getting started, and staying active and healthy during pregnancy as well as at any age or fitness level, we hope even more people will be inspired to keep moving with our amazing team of passionate trainers,” said Jay Blahnik, Apple’s senior director of fitness technologies, in a press release.The new “Workouts for Pregnancy” program consists of 10 workouts across Apple’s strength, core, and mindful cooldown categories. Each workout is about 10 minutes long and designed specifically for pregnant users, with... Continue reading…

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge Peloton debuted its Bike Plus with a much-desired feature: GymKit support. But now, the company’s pulling back some of that functionality. A Peloton spokesperson confirmed to The Verge today that GymKit no longer works with Bike Bootcamp classes and instead will “only be available in cycling classes for now.” The spokesperson also said: “Peloton is committed to bringing the GymKit integration to all workouts and disciplines within Apple’s terms of service,” seemingly suggesting bootcamp workouts didn’t fall under those terms.This change is a disruptive one for users who might have purchased the Bike Plus specifically for its GymKit support. It’s the first piece of hardware from the connected fitness company to support GymKit, and the... Continue reading…

Acer We already knew Acer was working on the first two Chrome OS devices powered by Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 7c chips. And today, the company has released two product listings for its Chromebook Spin 513, but you can’t buy this laptop just yet.As spotted by AboutChromebooks, the Chromebook Spin 513 with the Snapdragon 7c processor has two configuration listings that have appeared on Acer’s website, with a starting price of $479.99. Acer announced in October that the Chromebook Spin would start at $399.99. Additionally, both laptops also do not show 4G LTE for connectivity, which is something that was noted to be a configuration option.The key difference between the two is the RAM configuration, which is only a $20 price difference. Although... Continue reading…

Image: Manticore Games Core, the platform that hopes to help creators build games and players experience them, is launching for free in early access today. It’s available exclusively on the Epic Games Store and already includes over 20,000 free playable games across a wide variety of genres including team-based multiplayer shooters, RPGs, and side-scrollers. Core’s developer, Manticore Games, says that over a million players and creators have used the platform while it’s been in alpha over the past year.The aim with Core is to make it easier for creators to develop and monetize games, similar to what YouTube did for online video, while gamers get “an endless arcade of high-quality, user-built games and worlds.” The platform’s development tools are built on... Continue reading…

White House / Flickr A White House order issued Thursday morning directs the US government to expel ten diplomats and place a range of new sanctions on Russian individuals and assets in response to the SolarWinds hack. The order also places significant new restrictions on Russia’s sovereign debt, which will make it more difficult for the country’s government to raise money and support its currency.“Treasury will target Russian leaders, officials, intelligence services, and their proxies that attempt to interfere in the U.S. electoral process or subvert U.S. democracy,” said Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen. “This is the start of a new U.S. campaign against Russian malign behavior.”Uncovered in December, the hack saw more than 250 federal agencies and... Continue reading…

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge B&H Photo is once again offering the lowest price yet on the Verizon variant of the OnePlus 8. Originally priced at $800, you can get this model for $400. This phone typically costs more than the original OnePlus 8 model because it is compatible with Verizon’s mmWave network. However, because B&H is selling it as unlocked, it will work on AT&T and T-Mobile networks if either is your preferred phone carrier.The OnePlus 8 includes a 6.5-inch OLED screen, a 90Hz refresh rate, and 128GB of storage. Despite its successor, the OnePlus 9, debuting a few weeks ago, at $400, this is still a great deal for people looking to upgrade to a 5G-ready smartphone and not spend a lot.Woot is once again offering the lowest price on the Samsung Galaxy... Continue reading…

Copy editing amid art Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge In his final annual letter to Amazon’s shareholders, CEO Jeff Bezos — who will step down in Q3 2021 to make way for Andy Jassy — shared that the number of Prime subscribers has reached 200 million. Its Q4 2019 earnings included the milestone of surpassing 150 million subscribers to its Prime service that offers fast shipping, original TV content, and more. Essentially, Amazon convinced 50 million people to join Prime during the pandemic, accounting for an approximate 33 percent growth of the base.If you haven’t paid attention to the company’s earnings in the past year, Prime subscribers certainly aren’t the only numbers Amazon has been able to grow. 2020 was the company’s most profitable year yet, growing bigger during a time when many... Continue reading…

Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images The US could be on the verge of passing the first federal law against nonconsensual pornography or “revenge porn.” If it does, it could reignite a debate over the balance between punishing serious harms and limiting free expression.Lawmakers in 46 states (as well as Guam and the District of Columbia) have already passed bans on nonconsensual pornography: nude or sexually explicit images distributed without their subjects’ consent. But activists have long called for a federal law to replace the patchwork of state laws — and now, they’re on the cusp of getting it.A new measure that would ban knowingly or recklessly distributing “intimate visual depictions” of non-consenting subjects has been added as an amendment to the Violence Against... Continue reading…

A 2020 OWL match in Dallas, Texas. | Photo: Dallas Fuel. When the Overwatch League shifted to online play last season, it meant that the dream of a global esports league — one with teams spread across three continents — would have to wait. It also meant that fans wouldn’t be able to see the best teams compete against each other. The league split up into two divisions, with some teams based in Asia and others in North America. Because of issues around latency, those regions never competed against each other until the Grand Finals, which took place in Korea and featured some of the best matches of the season.So when the league start thinking of ways to make the 2021 season better, figuring out a way get teams from Seoul and Shanghai to face off against San Francisco and New York was paramount.... Continue reading…

A much better camera in a familiar body Continue reading…

Google Earth is getting a new 3D time-lapse feature that lets you observe how Earth has changed from 1984 to 2020, allowing you to see just how much the devastating effects of climate change have already shaped the geography of the planet.“It’s best for a landscape view of our world,” Rebecca Moore, director of Google Earth, Google Earth Engine, and Google Earth Outreach, said in a call with reporters this week. “It’s not about zooming in. It’s about zooming out. It’s about taking the big step back. We need to see how our only home is doing.”The feature (which Google calls “Timelapse,” one word) will be available in Google Earth starting Thursday. To access it, launch Google Earth and then click or tap on the Voyager tab (which has an... Continue reading…

Xfinity Mobile offers cell service on Verizon’s network in addition to 20 million Wi-Fi hotspots across the country. | Image: Xfinity Mobile Comcast’s wireless service, Xfinity Mobile, is changing the pricing structure on its unlimited plans. The company will now discount additional lines on its unlimited plan: a single-line plan will still cost $45 per month, but additional lines become cheaper the more you add. With four lines on a plan, you’ll pay $30 per month per line. That’s in contrast to a previous policy of charging the same fee per line, regardless of the number of lines on a plan — a practice touted on its website as recently as yesterday.The company points out that its $45 per month unlimited plan is still cheaper than single-line plans among the major wireless carriers, which is true: postpaid unlimited plans from the big three cost between $60 and $70 per... Continue reading…